


The Rescue

by saltylikecrait



Series: The Time Between [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Finn-centric, Implied/Referenced Torture, Rescue Missions, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-08 17:24:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17985476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltylikecrait/pseuds/saltylikecrait
Summary: Rey has been captured by the First Order. Finn comes up with a crazy plan to get her back.





	The Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Finnrey Friday!

Maybe it wasn’t the best plan, and Finn would admit it probably wasn’t, but Rey was being held captive by the First Order and while the Resistance assured him that she was a top priority, he just needed to her to be safe.

You could say his panicked mind wasn’t thinking logically; it reminded him a little like how he was feeling and thinking back on Starkiller when he volunteered for the Resistance with a promise to destroy the weapon, only that his real intention was to get Rey out. That mission turned out fine in the end, other than the fact he returned with one less companion and with a lightsaber slash down his back and in a coma. Starkiller had been destroyed, at least, though it brought some of the Resistance to revere Finn as a hero even though he didn't think he deserved the title. Had he thought the mission would be a failure – and a lot _had_ gone wrong – Finn would have found Rey and convince her to abandon ship with him. He did not think she would protest too much after all she went through and she seemed so exhausted after she returned from finding Luke Skywalker.

She told no one for weeks about the detour she made to the _Supremacy_ before she arrived on Crait, least of all, Finn. While he knew Leia seemed to know in her own mysterious way of the gist of what happened and why Rey returned with a broken lightsaber, Finn couldn’t help but feel disappointed in her. She didn’t exactly lie to him, but omitting the details could count as a lie.

Eventually, she fessed up, once the entire Resistance was given alarm over the fact that the First Order announced a bounty on her, their propaganda calling her a murderer for killing their beloved Supreme Leader.

And yet, though he was disappointed in her, Finn couldn’t _not_ care about her. After she revealed to him why she went to Kylo Ren in the first place, Finn realized her ill-fated plan had been a desperate ploy to save the Resistance and end the war quickly. She didn’t really seem keen on being the last Jedi (if she could call herself that) and there were days where Finn saw a look in her eyes that reminded him of his own hesitance to join the Resistance. And a part of him still wanted to offer her a way out, an escape.

So, here he was, going on another risky (unauthorized) mission to rescue her from the clutches of the First Order.

The flight suit didn’t fit him the way he hoped. He wasn’t sure who exactly it belonged to, but it was just a little tight in places he wished it wasn’t. But he looked the part of pilot and he hoped that as long as he looked like he belonged in the hangar and kept the helmet on, no one would recognize him. Poe, at least, was off-world on a mission along with the rest of Black Squadron, so that was one hurdle he didn’t have to face.

One problem was that the starfighters used by the Resistance only had room for one pilot and Finn cringed at the thought of him and Rey sharing a cramped space for hours. Someone would have to sit on someone’s lap and not in a romantic kind of way.

And he also needed a droid to assist him in flying. He knew the basics and passed his flight sims, but Finn was almost a complete newbie to piloting anything that wasn’t a land craft. That crossed out the A-wings, leaving him with the choice of a B-wing and an X-wing.

Right, droid first.

He looked around the hangar for any astromech that might help him. The droids on the base were unusually keen to be helpful and were enthusiastic about it. Finn wondered if it had to do with their treatment; many of the sentients in the Resistance treated the droids with respect, some even thought of them as friends. In the First Order, a friendship like the one Poe and BB-8 shared was unheard of.

Spotting a red and blue BB unit check over the X-wings left in the hangar, Finn approached them first.

“Hey there,” he began.

The droid beeped a greeting. Finn wasn’t fluent in binary yet, but he was having full, if very simple conversations with droids when needed. From the mannerisms of this droid, Finn concluded she had feminine programming.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

The droid replied.

“Ceebee-twenty-three? All right. I was wondering if you could help me? I’m supposed to go on a mission, but I haven’t been assigned a partner yet and I’m looking for someone to fly with me.”

The droid questioned him what the mission would entail.

“Not much,” Finn tried to assure her. “I need help with flying, but I have the basics down. Just doing reconnaissance is all.”

CB-23 did not seem interested in the idea. Finn could not follow her beeps, but she seemed to take being assigned to newbies as a personal offense.

“This might be harder than I thought,” he said to himself. “Maybe I should have asked Poe to introduce me to a droid earlier…”

At the mention of Poe’s name, CB-23 danced around excitedly on her base. She seemed to be interested in the mission now, wondering if Poe was the one to send Finn out.

He got the idea to play along. “Yeah, Poe assigned me on this. So what do you think?”

CB-23 agreed to help right away.

* * *

He didn’t tell CB-23 the whole plan because he did not want her to panic and either send her own communications to the Resistance or force them to turn around.

See, the plan was to get captured by the _Finalizer,_ specifically. Or if they were somehow lucky to evade capture... sneak on board somehow. The Resistance had at least gathered enough intel to know now that the _Supremacy_ had fallen, the Star Destroyer had become the preferred residency of the Supreme Leader. And they also knew where it currently was since the First Order didn’t feel the need to hide anymore. Finn felt it was a stroke of luck that Kylo Ren selected Finn’s old stomping grounds to house himself and that also meant it was likely that Rey was there too.

Finn steered the X-wing around the area, baiting the First Order to come after him. By the look of it, CB-23 was nervous, but she hadn’t quite caught on to what he was doing yet.

"Just a little longer, Ceebee,” he promised. “We’re gonna go a little farther and then turn around.” He hoped it wouldn’t come to that but for the time being, Finn would have to stall and come up with good excuses to keep the astromech from becoming weary of him.

Finally, turning past a large, single asteroid in their field of vision, Finn saw a Star Destroyer emerged from the darkness.

CB-23 was panicking now, but there was no telltale sign of a tractor beam. It was almost as if the First Order hadn’t noticed them yet, which was too fortunate.

“Calm down,” he hushed her. “But we’re gonna have to get on that Star Destroyer. Think you can help me land near one of the airlocks?”

The droid was hesitant, but she relented and assisted him in lowering the X-wing to attach to the asteroid to get close without being detected. As it passed by the Star Destroyer, Finn took his chance to cruise up to doors of what would be a small hangar. CB-23 hacked the panel to let them inside to a private hangar that was, to their luck again, empty.

“OK Ceebee,” he began. “This is for an officer’s shuttle. Either a droid will come in and find the X-wing, or a shuttle will try to land here.” He glanced around for something to hide her in, like a trash bin he used with BB-8 on the _Supremacy._ There was a discarded square top to a larger cleaning droid off to the side, and he picked it up and inspected it.

“This should do,” he said, and he looked around with a frown. “I’m gonna cover you with this, but Ceebee, if anyone shows up, I want you to make your way to the main hangar. We’ll find you there, I promise.”

The droid beeped her anger and demanded him to tell her who _we_ meant.

“Not enough time,” he explained. “But this is my real mission.”

Then he ran out of the hangar and peeked around the corner as he came to the first corridor. He glanced down at his orange flight suit and reminded himself that continuing to wear this would make him stick out like a sore thumb. “Right,” he muttered to himself. “Gotta look for spare uniforms. There should be a supply of them around here…” He tried to remember the layout of the _Finalizer,_ but even he had not come to this side of the Star Destroyer often.

But there should be a room… yes! Here! He opened the door quickly and quietly and, after peeking in to make sure everything was clear, he entered the room and shut the door behind him.

It wasn’t ideal to him, but getting back into stormtrooper armor would be the best way for him to get around. After discarding the flight suit in the laundry bin and hoping none of the droids would pay much attention to the new load, Finn checked each helmet he could find until he came across one that still had a call sign loaded on.

_CB-2301_

Well, CB might get a kick out of that, if she had a sense of humor. The call sign told him this was a helmet of an older trooper and Finn needed to make sure he played the part well.

He walked down the corridors at a pace that didn’t seem too fast as to make others notice him, but also was sure to not walk too slow to look like he was loitering. He kept his ears open for anything that might tip him off to where Rey was and hoped he had not made a mistake to come here.

“Prisoner duty?” he heard one of the ‘troopers ask another carrying a tray of food.

The other one sighed. “Special guest of the Supreme Leader’s.”

“The murderer?”

“Yeah, her. Hate bringing her meals. She makes the door rattle with her mind just to mess with me.”

“Once the Supreme Leader deals with her, there will be no Jedi left. Just remember that as she is, she’s no threat to you.”

“I keep telling myself that every day. But the way she glares at me…”

Realizing right away who they were talking to, Finn tailed the stormtrooper with the tray. Careful not to be seen and to follow behind the ‘trooper far enough to not lose him and to not make himself known, Finn found himself staring out a corridor to a heavily guarded cell.

This must be it, then.

The ‘trooper went inside and the door shut behind him quickly. Finn cursed under his breath because now he would have to come up with a spectacular plan to get inside.

He waited for another four hours for his chance, but he took the time gathering as much intel as he could without making it obvious that he wasn't supposed to be there. Knowing there would be one more meal Rey would be given that day, his best chance to get into the cell was to be the one to bring it to her. It made him feel guilty to attack the stormtrooper bringing in the meals, but he had no choice.

“Sorry,” he said as he dragged the unconscious ‘trooper into the nearest supply closet and grabbed the meal that fell off the tray and on to the floor. Luckily, it was only a bottle of water and a wrapped protein bar.

He approached the cell. “Meal for the prisoner,” he told the guards.

One of them looked him up and down. “What happened to FN-1890?”

Finn shrugged. “Dunno,” he said. “I was asked to take over tonight.” He held the tray out to prove his point.

They let him in without question.

He sat the tray down on the nearby metal table that reminded him too much of an exam bench and glanced around the room. In the center, Rey was strapped into an interrogation chair. It appeared some guards might have beaten her recently, judging by the fresh blood streaks down the side of her face. It reminded him a little like how he found Poe all that time ago.

She looked like she was asleep, and Finn knew his time was short before a guard would come in wondering what was up.

“Rey?” he whispered.

Her eyes opened, looking a little bloodshot. “Finn?” she mumbled.

He removed the helmet. “We’re getting out of here. Are you hurt?”

“Think they drugged me,” she slurred. Almost to prove her point, her head wobbled to the side.

Well, that wasn’t good.

“Can you still use the Force?”

She nodded. “Think so. Don’t know where my lightsaber is.”

“We have at. They left it in your A-wing.” It seemed a little careless that the First Order dragged Rey off her starfighter and left her lightsaber behind, but Leia had wondered if her son was toying with them. They made it easy for the Resistance to find the abandoned A-wing drifting in space with a message inside. The holo was just taunts by Kylo, sneering at his mother for her hope in the future of the New Republic and to brag that Rey, their greatest asset, was in their captivity.

Finn hit the switch to free her, and she stumbled to the floor as he ran over to catch her. Her legs wobbled.

“OK, my legs feel like jelly, but we’re gonna have to do this. I think Kylo’s patience with me is running thin.”

“You're on a public execution schedule,” Finn informed her. Rey’s face turned sour.

“Right, yeah, let’s go.”

Finn put his helmet on and walked back to the door. “On my signal, you’re gonna have to Force-push the guards or something. Think you can do that?”

She nodded. “I can.”

He opened the door and casually strolled outside. Once slightly away from the guards, he discreetly held his hand behind his back and motioned for her to follow him.

Stumbling out, Rey pushed at the guards with the Force, sending the four of them flying against the wall. A few more guards coming down the hall spotted them.

“Stop her!” Finn heard one of them shout.

There were several blaster bolts flying in their direction, but Rey, using the abilities she already picked up in her research, manipulated the blasts at an angle to the walls of the corridors, leaving smoking and scorched holes in their wake. But she missed one bolt and Finn had to jump out of the way.

They needed to make their escape quick, and he prayed to the Force or any deity out there that the X-wing had not yet been discovered. As he wandered the corridors for those hours, he heard no one discussing anything out of the ordinary and he expected that the entire base would have been called for a lock-down if that had happened. That probably meant Kylo was not on the _Finalizer_ at the moment, for Finn would be hard-pressed to think that he would get in and out so easily if he were on board.

He made sure Rey didn’t fall too far behind. She was a lot more aware than she acted like in the cell, but she was far from her normal self. Every once in a while, she glanced around their surroundings confused until Finn gently grabbed her arm and helped her maneuver to the hangar.

“This way,” he told her and counted his lucky stars again that the X-wing was still there. “Ceebee, load up," he hissed to the droid still under the container.

“An X-wing?” Rey lifted her brow as she hit a button on a nearby console to open up the hangar doors.

“Only thing I got. Sorry. It’s gonna be a tight squeeze.”

“I’ll say.” She looked like she was about to fall asleep standing up again.

“You wanna fly or-”

“I feel like I’m drunk, Finn. No drinking and flying, right?”

While Finn got himself into the cockpit first, helping Rey try to shimmy in, he grinned. “Well, drunk or not, you still might be a better pilot than me.” He looked over at the droid loading up into the astromech slot. “Ceebee? All set?”

The droid rushed a confirmation.

“OK, let’s go.” Finn, with the help of Rey, hit the controls to get the starfighter up and running. Engines ready, he looked to his right viewport to see a group of heavy-artillery ‘troopers rushing in.

Rey saw this too, now seeming to be more awake than ever. “Punch it!” she shouted to the droid, taking the controls for herself.

The X-wing rumbled as it almost blasted out of the hangar, sending shockwaves through the cockpit as Finn hit the back of his seat with Rey’s tangled hair getting into his face.

Rey didn’t ease up on the controls until they were safely out of harm’s way and hit lightspeed. “No TIEs,” she sighed with relief. “Good.” She patted the console. “Thanks… Ceebee?” she raised her voice.

The droid beeped her frustration about the whole matter.

“Must not have had enough notice to catch up to us,” Finn mused over the lack of attack once they got out of the hangar.

She nodded. “Can you fly now?” she slurred. “Tired.”

“Of course.” He smiled, wrapping his arms around her to reach the controls. “We’ll be back to base in a couple of hours.”

There was no other sound from Rey as she slumped up against him, her back to his chest. No sound except a loud snore.


End file.
